Date With A Fox - Island Fox Research with Juliann Schamel and Dr. Alexandria DeCandia

Friends of the Island Fox's Virtual Program on current island fox research.

"Date With A Fox"

with guests Juliann Schamel and Dr. Alexandra DeCandia

from Tuesday, April 30th

The April program highlighted current findings on island fox diet and microbiome. Microbiome investigations can help us understand how island foxes and island spotted skunks are using resources in the island ecosystem. Dietary investigations analyzing stable isotopes in whisker samples are revealing changes in island fox diet as their population size recovers and potential resource competition with island spotted skunks. 

Both research presenters are past recipients of Friends of the Island Fox Research Grants.

 

 

 

Dr. Alexandra DeCandia is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Biology Dept. at Georgetown University and works with the Center for Conservation Genomics at the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. Her work has been published in Molecular Ecology and she is currently working on a joint project with Juliann Schamel supported by Friends of the Island Fox.

 

Juliann Schamel is a Biological Science Technician working with island foxes at Channel Islands National Park and a graduate student in ecology and conservation at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Her work has been published in PLOS ONE and she presented a poster on island fox and island spotted skunk dietary overlap at the California Island Symposium. 

Informed conservation decisions for island foxes and island spotted skunks depend on scientific knowledge.

Friends of the Island Fox is currently 

accepting applications for our 2024 FIF Research Grant.

Subscribe to the FIF bi-monthly e-newsletter for invitations to upcoming "Date with a Fox" presentations.

Island Foxes on the Cover of Molecular Ecology

Fox Foto Friday - Island foxes make the cover of another scientific journal!

 

Friends of the Island Fox congratulates Jasmine Lu on the publication of her paper–"Ear mite infection restructures otic microbial networks in conservation–reliant Santa Catalina Island foxes (Urocyon littoralis catalinae)"–in Molecular Ecology. 

Working with Dr. Alexandra DeCandia, Lu investigated the connections between bacteria communities and ear mite infection to understand why island foxes on Catalina became so vulnerable to cancerous tumors in their ear canals.

When there's biodiversity in an island fox's microbiome, good bacteria can work together to keep harmful bacteria in check. When there is a lack of diversity, opportunistic pathogens, like Staphylococcus pseudintermedius can become the dominant bacteria in a fox's ear. In combination, ear mite infestation and S. pseudintermedius promote chronic inflammation. More on bacterial imbalance in island fox ear canal

Compounding the probability for serious disease, two strains of Staph bacteria appeared to cooperate in forming a "multistrain biofilm." As the bacterial community deteriorated, other carcinogenesis-promoting microbes rose in prevalence and assumed a keystone role in the microbiome. 

A video of Jasmine Lu discussing her work on "Date with a Fox" will be available soon.

Read the scientific paper

Why does the occurrence of ear mites in Catalina Island foxes initiate this bacterial imbalance? Other island foxes encounter ear mites, but a similar imbalance does not occur.

Those smudgy swabs collected from island fox ears during health checks continue to provide data to compare microbiomes between island foxes. 

Your donations helped to fund this important research for island foxes and the furtherance of scientific understanding of the potential role of bacteria in some cancers.

Island Fox Microbiome at the Smithsonian!

FIF's 2020 Research Grant recipient Dr. Alexandra DeCandia recently spoke about her work investigating the island fox microbiome. 

Watch the video of the program

Here's a behind the scenes look at her process extracting the DNA of different microbes from the island fox swab samples.

Dr. Allie reports: 

I inventoried over 800 swabs and over 300 blood samples collected from Channel Island foxes and island spotted skunks in 2020. I then extracted DNA and prepared samples for microbiome sequencing (a process called "library preparation"). The last step of the library preparation is cleaning the library–in essence, removing all of the DNA fragments that I don't want to ultimately sequence.

Although it may seem like a straightforward process, this took a bit of troubleshooting. After a few failed attempts, I worked with the lab manager at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Center for Conservation Genomics to learn how to run an "eGel". In this approach, you put your library in an agarose gel (which looks like a think rectangle of gelatin), run an electrical current through the gel to separate DNA fragments based on size...

(under UV light, the fragments look like glowing bands of the gel), and then pull out the band you want to sequence (in my case, fragments roughly 400 base pairs in length).

Then the DNA had to be treated to remove "gel particles and other potential contaminants."

Overall, this was a nerve-wracking process, but thankfully it worked!

Dr. Allie has submitted all seven sequencing libraries to the Princeton University Genomics Core Facility for sequencing. She reported on some preliminary findings during her "Date with a Fox" presentation. This is Fox Science at work! 

Your donations support this cutting-edge science that will provide important information regarding island fox health.  

Swab collection continues.

What is a microbiome? and Why is this important for island foxes?

Fox Foto Friday - This Is Island Fox Science

Fresh from the fox swabs...This past week, Friends of the Island Fox had the opportunity to spend some time in the field with the biologists of the Catalina Island Conservancy during their final days this season counting and providing island foxes with health checks.

During health checks, samples, like the one shown above, were taken. (how are island foxes swabbed?)

Soon these swabs will be boxed up and sent across the country to enrich the data set of Dr. Alexandra De Candia. During FIF's first virtual "Date with a Fox," Dr. Allie shared her work on the island fox microbiome and its importance for fox health and immunity.

Dr. Allie explains that Catalina Island biologists "have been collecting swabs since 2017, so we are building a really nice longitudinal dataset. 2020–2021 samples will help that dataset grow. This will allow us to look at changes in fox microbiomes through time and (once we have enough repeat individuals sampled) see how treatment or past history of mite infection alters microbiomes in the short- and long-term."

If you missed the virtual event you can watch the video here.

More on the connection between microbiome and fox health on Catalina Island.

Not only were the CIC biologists taking these samples to enrich the microbiome data set, they were also putting radio collars, funded by you, on island foxes.

Fox Foto Friday - Island Fox Science in Progress

What are these? Look closely. These are swabs from island fox ears and backsides being processed in the lab at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington D.C.

This is island fox science in progress! FIF 2020 Research Grant recipient Dr. Allie DeCandia updated us on her work investigating the microbiome of island foxes.

"Between July and December 2020, collaborators across all six Channel Islands collected ear canal swabs, anal swabs, and blood samples from 50–60 foxes per subspecies. After collection in the field, these samples were shipped to Princeton University for temporary storage until all samples arrived on the east coast." In March, DeCandia moved the samples to her lab at the Smithsonian. She spent April and May inventorying samples.

"My collaborators did a fantastic job sampling foxes!" DeCandia says. "In total, I inventoried 851 swabs over the course of 23 hyper-focused laboratory hours (which were thankfully not consecutive)."

Processing the samples must be meticulous because she is investigating DNA.

"I sterilized scissors (bleach dunk / water dunk / superheat in a Bacinerator), snipped off the swab tip, placed the swab tip in a sterile microcentrifuge tube, recorded metadata written on the original swab container, and repeated the process for each swab collected."

The coordinating 300+ blood samples are now being inventoried and the individual island fox DNA extracted. DeCandia will spend the summer extracting microbial DNA from the swabs and preparing samples for "microbiome sequencing." Over the fall/winter, she'll be deep in analyzing the data.

"I am ecstatic to be working with so many amazing researchers in the field and in the lab," DeCandia says, "and can't wait to analyze this impressive dataset in the months ahead!"

FIF grant funds are processing the DNA extraction. 

Your donations support this cutting edge research.

If an island fox is an environment for microbes, what was lost when island fox populations declined to just a few individuals? How is an entire species' health impacted if they recover from near extinction, but have lost some of the microbial biodiversity that protected them from bacteria infection or supported healthy digestion? 

Island fox microbiome investigation will help us understand island fox health and may have implications for other endangered species.

Your donations supporting research are an investment in the island fox's long-term survival.

Friends of the Island Fox is taking applications

through August 31 for our 

2021 Research Grant  (see application)

Fox Foto Friday - Island Foxes in Washington D.C.?

What smells like an island fox? Came from an island fox? But is contained on the tip of a cotton swab? A sample of island fox microbiome.

Island fox being swab with cotton swab

Friends of the Island Fox recently heard from FIF 2020 Research Grant recipient, Alexandria DeCandia, Ph.D.

DeCandia wrote "I wanted to let you know that microbiome samples from all six islands have arrived on the east coast :)" Swabs taken from island foxes during health checks have been transferred to a lab in Washington D.C. She added, "I'm very much looking forward to the next steps of this research!"

FIF's Research Grant is funding the DNA analysis of the swabs to get a picture of the biodiversity of microbes living on and in island foxes.

What Is She Looking For?

DeCandia's research is cutting edge science. Her early analysis of Catalina Island foxes led to some important findings on the possible relationships between bacteria in island fox ear canals and a tendency toward extreme immune system response to ear mites. This next stage of research builds on that work.

Maintaining healthy island foxes across the islands requires greater in depth understanding of their health, diet, position in the ecosystem, and interactions with other species, including humans. 

Friends of the Island Fox invests in research to invest in the island fox's future. Applications for the FIF 2021 Research Grant will be available April 15, 2021.